Chapter 2
'Arbiters Brief' As the party fled the crime scene, they encountered Detective Quinn . He told them he didn't want to get involved in Ördög's games. Later they met Fong who told them he would teach them Tattoo Lore as a favour that he owed to Mason . Afterward they investigated Marko's Spot and on the way they encountered Rosewater who sold JD a coho for 5 bucks and had an invisible friend. Rosewater shared a joint with Charlotte and JD but no one wanted to huff glue. 4 generic and a Combat were awarded. On the way to the strip bar... Merle's recollections We managed a somewhat sketchy tactical withdrawal from the gory crime scene. Evilina's headless corpse plummeted to the ground in front of us, spraying two of the others (no, wait, benny in play, just JD) with blood. Sirens were wailing. We ducked into a nearby building and may have been caught on camera. Merle lifted Charlotte up to spray paint the camera from below while Millie picked the lock on a door into the parking garage. Unfortunately our cool exit was interrupted by a solo cop. We bluffed her towards a vague and imaginary suspect in the building and walked our separate ways with the intention of regrouping at the camper van. Unfortunately a squad car pulled up straight towards Merle. Too late to flee or fight, so he tried to bluff despite having a gun, a knife, and the victim's ID. Two detectives got out, one interrogated Merle. JD was nearby and later tells Merle the detective who spoke to him was emanating evil. JD's a weird guy. But he may have been onto something: the detective (a military DC type with a "tough guy choker") grabbed Merle's arm to check his tattoo/brand and referred to us as servants or pawns of Ordog. The encounter really drove home Mason's point about trusting noone. Back at the camper van we regrouped at a motel room and spent some time researching and training. Charlotte hacked Evilina's phone but couldn't manage to get any useful info. Millie and Merle trained in Stealth. JD made some fetishes. We got a few bucks from Evilina's purse, which Millie kept along with her temp ID. Mason contacted us and said that Ordog is a demon servant of a more powerful demon prince. We seem to be making big enemies fast. He sent us to talk to his friend Fong in a Chinatown alley (bang on the door, tell them Beauregard sent us). We went to meet Fong at midnight Teusday. Fong is an elderly Chinese man who runs a gambling parlour frequented by gangsters and regular folk. Fong said he'd train us in tattoo lore at midnight on Wednesday. Our tattoos can give us powers or be levelled up, which somehow has to do with guys riding motorcycles into the night to power up. Fong says Mason owes him a favour for helping us. In future he'll expect something back if he does anything more for us. Maybe we can get missions from him. We then went to the alley behind the No. 5 Orange to follow up on clues about Marko, a homeless felllow tattooed kid who's on "the list" with a question mark beside his name. Charlotte smoked up with the FN guy Rosewater who was selling coho out of an El Camino in front. Millie and Merle found a different homeless guy who'd been incapacitated by a weird little alien/reptil creature which Merle violently disposed of (natural 20 on his first ever strike roll!). The gang geared up and figured out a way into a tunnel beneath a large metal plate under a dumpster. We climbed down a ladder into a sewer system area filled with white goo, and found a side room full of more alien/reptile monster things. They haven't yet spotted us but we'll have to figure out our next move fast. Charlotte what the frak am I doing? I don’t need any cop trouble. The scary thing is that if I hadn’t got us out of that alley we all would have been caught. I don’t know the first thing about being a criminal. Can I rely on the others to keep us free? What choice do I have? It’s either them or the demons. Evie’s phone had a picture of a bouncer. Zephyr knows everyone In the club scene. I should show it to her. She’s probably a bit worried about me, anyway. I havnt spoken to her in a couple days Oh shit this sewer looks freaky. This is even worse than the cops. At least I have a shotgun. Why am I in front??? It's a nest of those gross worm monsters. Whoa, that would be really freaky except for its all good... one love jah rastafari. J-Dog That's it, lets get out of here! Why is the black-man the only one sprayed with blood, F'n racist writers. Over the fence is a good idea Charlotte, Fetish behind the dumpster? Way to pick that lock Millie. Cops! Just one. Over there, bye-bye. More Cops! F'n Evil Cop! Just walkin' while black here! He knows about the Marks? Oh shit. Let's go! Mason sends us to Fong, (Note to self: come back with pool points and 4 hour blocks in hand), then we track down Marco. Free joint / $5 fish! Rosewater hears voices when he huffs glue? Uh-oh, Dude's O'd what the fuck is that?!! Merle, nice, ok, you go in front. What the fuck! Didn't know a suscpisciscuosh loking plate in the ground was suspicious looking, but clearly? Needs the key, there it is, just like old times. This is a terrible idea. The super-coveralls and respirators aren't though, nice work again Merle! Oh shit, it gets worse? Why am I in front now, always the black man... Sparks! Here, I'll go past so Charlotte can look, what, what the fuck, what's going on back there... Millie Shit, so there we were with Evie’s headless body, blood everywhere and sirens coming fast. The only thing I could think of was playing dead, so when Charlotte suggested climbing over the dumpster, I went for it. Somehow, I pulled off a sweet jumpflip to get up on the wall, only to fall on my ass on the other side. Of course, everything is locked up tight, no “urban green space planning” in the DTES. So I started working the lock into the parkade, thinking we could nab a car and drive out of here like normal people not associated with the headless body in the alley. Good thing I recognized the cheap ass lock or else we’d still be there getting worked over by cops. As it was, the only working car was a tesla and I’ve heard stories about their fucking future security. So instead of driving out, we walk, no problem, no need to panic, just breathe. Of course, there’s a cop on the street, but nothing we can’t talk our way out of… why does it have to be a bitch cop? Why is it always a bitch cop?? Somehow we talked our way out of that, only to be rounded up by that creepy detective who looks like he knows way too much. I really can’t tell if it’s better or worse that he recognized the scar on Merle’s arm and let us go. WTF does that mean? We’re so far out of our league here… Anyway, we got ushered out under the detective’s watchful eye (really, anyone who was watching could have seen the whole thing, our car is such a heat score now… fuck!) and headed to another motel in the burbs to let things cool down. Mason saw everything on the news and figured we must need a bit more help before we fuck up worse and hooked us up with Fong, who’s some sort of oriental tattoo master. Fong’s a bit of a crusty old prick but what he said about sailors and bikers powering up their tattoos kind of sounds right. Hell if it gives us an edge to survive, ink me up. Fong told us to come back the next night so we figured we’d check out our last lead on Marcus. Ran into Rosewater on the way and Charlotte and Eugene smoked a joint with him. Are they crazy? Dude hears voices… but at least he hasn’t spent any time in a psych hospital. Shit. We found Marcus’ spot and tried to interrogate another homeless guy when this fucking alien snake thing jumped up. Merle showed those muscles aren’t just for show and stomped the shit out of it. I was able to wake up the homeless guy but he couldn’t move and then Eugene did something… weird. I could see the fear and trauma in this poor guy’s eyes as he was laying there paralyzed and getting mindraped and I realized that dying isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Somehow, we found a way under these steel plates in the alley and found a ladder going into the sewer. Good thing I bought all these hazmat suits! I tell you, nothing like having the right equipment for the job. Even so, the nasty jizz-water in the sewer was getting everywhere. I was crawling through this pipe, thinking about how nice a hot shower will feel when up ahead Charlotte found some more snake things. What’s she doing up front? Damn that bitch is tough! You go girl, show them what that boomstick can do! Category:Guardians